X-Women: The Sinister Virus - the doomed Sega Genesis game

[Peanutsinspace]

Many of us heard about the old Sega Genesis game that would have featured three prominent female X-Men popular in the 90's. Storm, Jean Grey and Rogue would have been featured in their own game to round out the Sega Genesis' previous two X-Men game titles.

The video below details much of what's known about the fate of the game and features a clip of the only game footage known to exist.



An article by Dan Ramirez (full article here - http://www.sega-16.com/2013/12/interview-john-pedigo/) posted December 13, 2013, for the site Sega-16, interviews former associate producer at Sega of America, John Pedigo. Pedigo contributed to the development of X-Women and while much of Pedigo's account is mentioned in the above video, the full interview regarding the X-Women title is presented here. I pasted only the bits of interview relating to the game, but the rest can be read at the link provided.


X-Women Interview

Sega-16: X-Women: The Sinister Virus seemingly was one of the few gems in the otherwise sparse 1996 release calendar for the Genesis. Could you tell us what the game’s basic premise, playable characters and gameplay would’ve been like?

John Pedigo: I spent two days at Marvel creating a story, but I can’t even tell you what it was about at this point. They loved the idea of an all-woman game. The main characters were Storm, Jean Grey, and Rogue. What we tried to do was add flying to the Batman mechanic, which I think that may have played a role in the game’s demise. Instead of the programmer trying to get the girls to fly, if we kept them on the ground we could have gotten further developing the game. Storm was going to have lightning attacks, Jean was able to grab hold of things and throw them, and Rogue would’ve just beat the crap out of everything. One fun thing that came out of it was that my friends and I got to do the voices for the game. We went to Jon Holland’s (VectorMan musician) studio in Petaluma, did voices all day and laughed our asses off… good times.

Sega-16: Did SoA (Sega of America) have any big plans for X-Women going into the 1996 holiday season, which saw the company push Sonic 3D Blast, Vectorman 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 as its last first-party Genesis offerings?

John Pedigo: Yeah, we thought we were going to be the last Genesis first-party title.

Sega-16: How far along was development on X-Women before things went downhill? What was the death knell of the game, and ultimately Clockwork Tortoise itself?

John Pedigo: The art was done but no full levels, only one or two minor enemies and the start of the game mechanics. There were a combination of factors that led to its demise. Sega was moving away from 16-bit altogether, and X-Women was going to be the last Genesis game. As a producer, I failed because I became too good of friends with Clockwork. You can’t get too close to developers as friends, it takes the relationship in a direction that is not good for the project. We were going to raves and partying together outside of work, and I lost my status as the client. And when s**t hit the fan, I got no response on my threats. I got a lot of interference from my main programmer’s (John O’ Brien) wife… I think the pressure of following up the Batman title was too much for the guy, and they never hit one milestone. Cleverly, the coding was done in Assembly which made it almost impossible to find another programmer to work on it. The art was done though but Steve (Thomson), the artist, was like “I’m done and out of here” and moved back to England. I did visit him there a year or so later. A combination of all that killed X-Women. I have heard there is a director’s cut of most of it from Clockwork.

Sega-16: Do you recall the date or month in which X-Women was formally canceled?

John Pedigo: No.

Sega-16: Apart from a small blurb in the December 1996 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the last public mention of X-Women appeared to have been in a press release announcing its inclusion in Sega’s Fall 1996 exhibit at Walt Disney World’s Innoventions museum. To your knowledge, did the game ever make it to that exhibit?

John Pedigo: It did not make it.

Sega-16: Did any X-Women prototype or beta ROMs survive the game’s cancellation?

John Pedigo: I had one for a little while, but it had degraded by the time I tried to fire it up a few years later.

[WhiteQueenEmmaFrost]

I would've played that. I loved the first two games. Especially since you could ALWAYS use your powers as a character none of this "wait to increase the power bar" nonsense.

Anyone know if/where you can play the other two games?

[Phoenixx9]

It's a shame this was never produced!

[Venomous Mask]

Clone Wars would have been a tough act to follow. From the clips, the game play looks a bit hectic and not entirely straightforward. I agree that limiting the characters more to the ground would have helped, possibly with flying done only in designated scenes. If promoted well, though, I think it might have been a hit like Vectorman 2 and Sonic 3D Blast.

I would've played that. I loved the first two games. Especially since you could ALWAYS use your powers as a character none of this "wait to increase the power bar" nonsense.

Anyone know if/where you can play the other two games?

The first X-Men Genesis game I found to be unbelievably frustrating and Mutant Apocalypse played too much like a fighting game. Clone Wars was fast-paced, easy to understand, and let you play the characters in the same manner as they fought in the games and shows. As to where you can play the first two games, you can probably find them on Amazon, as well as the system:

https://www.amazon.com/Sega-Genesis-...s=sega+genesis

Just make sure you get a copy in good condition.

[Spensieri]

I was very bummed that the third X-Game was cancelled. I remember being excited when I read that article but the game never materialized. I even loved the two GameGear X-Men games, and those were not very good games. I pretty much only got a Genesis and GameGear for X-Men (and Ren & Stimpy).

[marhawkman]

This sounds a lot like Ashes of the Apocalypse.

We know it was in development at some time, but for whatever reason wasn't released.